The executioner was there. English soldiers held her slight figure as she was bound to the wooden stake high above the waiting crowd. Her lips moved in restless, ceaseless prayer. Now the air was shifting: a snapping in the ears; a catch of smoke in the throat. Her voice was high and urgent. ‘Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.’ The fire burned.
Caroline Lockhart began her career as a journalist at the age of 18. In 1889, she became a reporter on the Boston Post. She quickly became known for her adventuresome, independent spirit, pursuing tough assignments as she developed one of her literary principles: “…I have endeavored to know what I am writing about before I write.”
Later, traveling on assignment for a story about the Blackfeet Indians, Lockhart found Cody, Wyoming and the surroundings to be to her liking. It was also a useful backdrop and inspiration for her books, often focused on western themes and characters.
The Lockhart Ranch
In 1926, she purchased a ranch in Montana, located in what is today Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. She inherited a two-room cabin, a few run-down sheds, and 20 acres of cultivated ground from the previous owners of the ranch. In addition to it being her residence and a retreat in which to pursue her writing, she added to the acreage and developed a sizable commercial ranching operation. She landscaped the area around the cabin with irises and hollyhocks, planted cottonwood trees for shade, and built stone pathways. She also constructed fences, corrals, irrigation systems, and additional structures.
Main ranch house at Lockhart Ranch (NPS).
Life on the ranch, which she expanded in size to over 6,034 acres, was mostly self-sufficient, as evidenced by features of the landscape. A storage building was used to keep potatoes, apples, and meats. Milk, butter, and eggs from ranch cows and chickens went from the milk shed and the chicken coop to the spring house to chill. A small apple orchard was an important part of the ranch agriculture. Maintaining equipment, repairing items, and shoeing horses made the blacksmith shop a necessity. In the corrals, livestock were branded and separated for sale.
Corral at Lockhart Ranch (NPS).
Today, the ranch landscape appears much as it did when Caroline Lockhart was living there. It provides visitors with a window to the operations of a ranch in the Dryhead area during the first part of the 1900s and an introduction to the spirited woman who embraced this part of the country in both her life and her writing.
An ornamental willow gate hangs partially open, welcoming visitors to the Lockhart Ranch (NPS).
This month, we are exploring a few of the NPS cultural landscapes associated with writers and writing. Catch any you missed or add your own favorites with #literarylandscapes
Thefirst saint In the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Virgin Sandukht, who was martyred for her faith, she was the daughter of the Armenian King Sanatruk in the first century AD.
The Armenian Church observes the Feast of St. Thaddeus the Apostle and St. Sandukht the Virgin. This Story sheds light on the early days of Christianity in Armenia.
St. Thaddeus and Saint Bartholomew, two of the twelve holy apostles of Jesus Christ, were charged by Saint Peter, leader of the disciples, to spread Christianity in Armenia in the 1st century A.D. St. Thaddeus converted King Abgar V the Black, the first Christian king and a historical Armenian ruler of the kingdom of Osroene, holding his capital at Edessa. A vassal of the kingdom of Armenia. The king along with Thaddeus baptised and converted of all the people of Edessa. Here St. Thaddeus built a church and ordained priests and deacons.
After leaving Edessa, the apostle traveled to northern Armenia, bearing the spear of christ given him by Peter and a letter from King Abgar. He finally arrived at the town of Shavarshan, where King of Armenia Sanatruk lived. Thaddeus preached in people’s homes, in hidden underground chambers, in marketplaces, and in the streets.
Sandukht learned about Christ, when her nurse confessed her commitment to the Christian faith, the princess sparked by curiosity, disguised herself as an ordinary woman and followed her nurse to a Christian gathering. Intrigued, Sandukht continued attending the Christian gatherings. The Christian faith made such an impact on Sandukht’s life that she decided to convert. She declared her belief in Christ and was baptized, But when the king’s spies reported the news to her father, Sanatrouk was enraged. In an attempt to discourage his daughter, he promised to allow her to marry the man she loved, an exceptional horseman named Zareh, and to enjoy life in a comfortable palace, surrounded by endless riches.
Sandukht declined his offer of this extravagant life, infuriated by his daughter, the king sentenced the princess to jail. Zareh visited her in prison, begging her to return to him and to her old Armenian faith, but nothing could sway Sandukht. Meanwhile, the news of Sandukht’s imprisonment spread throughout Armenia. Increasingly, people began to accept the Christian faith, and they prayed for Sandukht’s release. Even some of the king’s soldiers became believers and converted. Further enraged, yet mostly moved by the love for his daughter, the King summoned Sandukht from prison to give her a last chance to renounce her new faith and to claim allegiance to her father and his pagan gods. He asked his daughter to choose between the crown and the sword,either she would renounce Christianity and serve as a pagan princess or face death.
Sandukht chose the sword, knowing that Christianity would soon blossom in Armenia. The young princess was ordered to be executed. During this difficult time, she drew strength from St. Thaddeus, who encouraged her to be firm, reminding her that she would soon be with her Saviour. Thaddeus was also executed by the king. Zareh was among the many Armenians who were moved by Sandukht’s faith, and who also converted to Christianity. King Sanatruk continued the orders for the executions of Christians, including Zareh. Their sacrifice planted the seeds of the Christian faith in Armenia
Legends say that immediately after one of the soldiers thrust his sword into the holy virgin’s heart “a sweet fragrance filled the air and a light shone from heaven in the form of a fiery pillar that hovered over Santoukhd’s body for three days and three nights.” More than two thousand people that witnessed these events, it is said, all converted and were baptized that night. St. Sandukht’s body was buried and entombed by St. Thaddeus at the same site. St. Sandukht was martyred on the 15th of December.
Armenian girl with identification scaring on chest and face, 1919.
Credit: Underwood & Underwood/Corbis
In the 1920’s thousands of Armenian girls and women managed to escape the Armenian Genocide by fleeing to Syria. Armenian girls were kept in slavery and forced into prostitution. In order to identify them and prevent their escape, their Turkish pimps tattooed their face, arms and chest.
The girl in the photo had just been rescued from a Turkish house and was cared for by the Y.W.C.A workers at Aleppo.
There should be more posts honouring and remembering Rita Levi Montalcini. I know she’s atypical for those “women in science” posts, because her work was honoured in her later life, with a Nobel too, and she was nominated as a senator for life, one of the highest honours that Italy can grant. But she studied as a Jewish woman in the 1930s, under fascism, and when antisemitic laws prevented her from retaining her job as an academic assistant, she set up a home laboratory where she studied the growth of nerve cells throughout ww2. There cannot ever be enough appreciation for such a great woman.
So I constantly see people shit on second wave feminism, complain it was only for privileged women, was racist, etc etc. I think given everything going on, it’s a good reminder how much women’s rights and lives have changed thanks over the last 50 years thanks to second wave.
Do you like your right to abortion? 2nd wave feminism.
Do you sign legal or financial contracts as yourself without a man’s signature or special permission? 2nd wave feminism
Do you like being able to control your own money even if you’re married? 2nd wave feminism
That jobs can’t automatically disqualify women, require makeup or weight requirements, or fire you for becoming pregnant or being sexually active out of marriage.
Domestic abuse shelters, laws, and general awareness? No-blame and equal divorce? Equal rights to making decisions for your kids?
Women having a wide variety of jobs, being able to go to most colleges, get education, have sports teams, run in the freaking marathon?
Like no it wasn’t perfect, but most stuff that allows women to be independent financial and legal actors is thanks to second wave feminism. And that has helped all women a lot, to the point where I don’t think people can even conceive that it was different in our mother’s lifetimes.
Christian Maclagan (1811–1901), arguably Scotland’s first female archaeologist, was born at Underwood, near Denny, Stirlingshire, in 1811. She was the daughter of George Maclagan, distiller and chemist, and his wife Janet, herself the daughter of Thomas Colville, printer, of Dundee. Her family’s wealth ensured she had independent means to pursue her own interests and transcend society’s barriers. She spent much of her life engaged in researching and recording the prehistoric archaeology of Scotland. In later life she resided at Ravenscroft, near Denny, and devoted much time and money to the removal of slums in Stirling, providing houses for the working-classes outside the burgh. Her archaeological researches into prehistoric Scotland remain important to this day, although she tended to over-domesticise sites, arguing, for example, that stone circles were robbed out brochs. However, she was amongst the first archaeologists to consider archaeological stratigraphy, with her section drawings of Coldoch broch being published five years before Pitt Rivers – generally credited with the introduction of this field method to British archaeology – began his excavations at Cranborne Chase.
Drawing of Keir Hill, Gargunnock, by Christian around 1870. Maclagan, Miss C, “On the Round Castles and Ancient Dwellings of the Valley of the Forth, and its Tributary the Teith.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 9 (1870-72): 29–44. Available online at AHDS[/caption] She was also amongst the first to argue for a domestic, native origin for brochs. However, her chief claim to fame was to develop new methods for recording sculptured stones. Despite these accomplishments, she failed get due recognition. For example, her role in the excavation of Coldoch broch was ignored and she lamented that:
“He* is chronicled by the Society as the discoverer, while the writer of these notes was completely ignored.” (Maclagan 1884, 22).
Coldoch Broch as it looks today
A better preserved broch from Glenelg
In what seems an incredible act of discrimination, she was denied full membership of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and complained with bitter sarcasm that she was:
” … a woman, and therefore unworthy of being a member of any Antiquarian Society…”, (Maclagan 1894, 38).
As a result of being snubbed for her sex by the Scottish archaeological establishment as represented by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland –she was only allowed in as a Lady Associate– she sent all her rubbings from stones to the British Museum rather than Edinburgh. This may be, in part, why she is so little known today. However, this is beginning to change and there is a small permanent exhibition to her in the
which welcomes any support from the TrowelBlazers audience! It should, of course, be stressed that times are very different now, and much of this is because women like Maclagan pushed for female inclusion in the Society of Antiquaries as full Fellows. Females have been welcome since 1901, sadly the year of Maclagan’s death, but her legacy remains: all are currently welcome to join. Christian’s personal life is slightly more difficult to unravel. She was a self-taught archaeologist, and a member of the literalist Free Church of Scotland, which seems to have heavily influenced her interpretation of archaeology. She lived with a companion, Jessie Hunter Colvin, another antiquary, until the latter’s death; but even at the age of 80 Christian was still touring the United Kingdom lecturing on her findings. *It is not clear whether she means Sir James Young Simpson or John Stuart. Read More about Christian by Therese:
Team TrowelBlazers was very excited when a big brown envelope turned up in the post – wrappings torn off, we revealed a brand new graphic novel from Self Made Hero: Agatha, by Anne Martinetti, Guilaume Lebeua and Alexandre Franc. There has of course been a lot written about the Agatha of the title – she is Agatha Christie, Queen of the Murdery Mystery, who had a surprising secret life as TrowelBlazer. Christie’s life is certainly worthy of recounting, traipsing as it did from an idyllic pre-war England to the edges of crumbling colonial world; her privileged position in this changing world did not fully protect her from either personal tragedy or the those of the wider 20th century world. Agatha recounts the key moments of Christie’s life, sketching in a series of bande dessine (think TinTin) style vignettes of the child, woman, and celebrity.
Illustration is a rather different approach to biography, of course; alongside private moments from her early life that are clearly drawn from an emotional interpretation of her character, we see discussions between the lady and her famous fictional detectives, and the characters inner thoughts appear solidly materialised in the traditional thought bubble. While many of the scenes pictured are clearly the work of interpretation by the authors, none ring overly false –each episode from Christie’s life, whether a memory of her father, or even our particular favorite, getting stuck in a sandstorm with Hercule Poirot, takes a real event in her life and imagines it distilled into a few set pieces. Each little episode carries a sense of a very human Christie, disappointed in love, complaining to her imaginary friends (and frenemies, in the case of a certain egg-shaped mustachioed detective), and of course a graphic novel is better suited to these flights of fancy than traditional print biographies. That said, there is quite a bit of life packed in – a timeline in the back gives key dates for the disoriented.
This is not a book for those looking for the exacting details of Christie’s life; the what-where-when-how of her trials, tribulations, and triumphs. It is rather a graphic novel for those happy to immerse themselves in the imagined world of a woman who did things, who lived a very full life and created imaginary worlds for millions of people around the world. Her TrowelBlazing activities do not make too much of a splash when set against her literary career, or even the drama of her personal relationships, but that is in its way very fitting; sometimes we have to remind ourselves that the TrowelBlazers we celebrate today were women too, in their time.
Short Version:
Go find someone with a sense of adventure to give this to.
Wow. Three years. THREE. That’s longer than most academic contracts these days… (Joke! Kinda. Weep. Move on.) It has been three incredible years for women in the Trowel Wielding sciences. On the home front, your fearless anarchic collective have gotten pretty dang busy with life achievements of their own - several babies, some tenure track, and some super exciting new TV programmes - it’s been a whirlwind! But even more impressive are all the things we’ve had the chance to learn, to do, and to see because of the unwavering awesomeness of the TrowelBlazer community, including kicking it at the US Ambassador’s place in London and actually Walking Through Time. Hopefully we’re now getting to a point where we’re going to be able to really give back to the community, with enormous dream projects in the pipeline AS I TYPE. We’re talking bursaries for fieldwork. We’re talking funded training days. We’re talking the incredible generosity of institutions from all over the place allowing us to reset those imaginations.
So, yeah, we’ve done amazing stuff this year:
YOU wrote the posts that brought overshadowed lives back into the light!
Posts from 2015 and 2016
YOU inspired us to create #RealFossilHunterLottie - a top ten buy in 2015!
(and a top ten member of Brenna’s field team too)
Next up: world domination! We will be at WAC 8 in Kyoto in August/September of 2016, and hopefully in a museum near you with our new exciting collaboration with Prospect Union and the artist Leonora Saunders. There’s tons of other cool TrowelBlazing stuff happening too - like the very exciting new fundraising campaign by Lyme Regis Museum to build their new Mary Anning Wing! You could even reserve your place for their gala black tie dinner where Tracey Chevalier will discuss the inspiration for her fossil-hunting heroine in the award winning Remarkable Creatures - just email Margaret of the Museum Friends for details! ([email protected])
The planned Mary Anning Wing for the Lyme Regis Museum
More details to come, but for now, BIG LOVE from your Team - Brenna, Tori, Suzie, and Becky.
The process of fossilization is not kind to the brain. Nor indeed to any soft tissues, the anatomy of which are usually not preserved in the fossil record. How then to go about examining and unravelling the evolutionary history of the vertebrate brain? Nowadays we might first think to tackle this problem using 3D imaging techniques to virtually reconstruct the endocast of a fossil to capture the external features of the brain that have been imprinted on the internal surface of the cranium. But how accurately does a fossil brain endocast reflect the anatomy of the unpreserved tissue, and to what extent can features of an endocast be used to make palaeobiological inferences about its extinct owner? Answers to these and other questions are possible through the pioneering work of the German palaeontologist Tilly Edinger (1897-1967), who founded modern paleoneurology (the study of fossil brains) in the 1920s, tackling for the first time issues that still form the basis of research today.
Much like wax pouring into a mold, sediment can fill fossil crania and become cemented hard over time, preserving the internal features in what is known as a natural endocast. Such specimens are rare, and Edinger’s interest in fossil brains was first sparked by the study of a natural endocast of the Mesozoic marine reptile Nothosaurus as part of her doctoral dissertation at Frankfurt University. Following her graduation in 1921, Edinger later published a description of the endocranial cast of Nothosaurus [1] in what was to be her first research paper. Importantly, she realized that despite a large literature on such fossil specimens, these were mainly considered curiosities and had not been examined in a comparative or geological (temporal) context. She endeavored to collate and synthesize this information into a book (Die fossilen Gehirne, Edinger 1929), it defined a new field and detailed the questions that Edinger set about to answer over the course of her research career [2].
It was, however, far from plain sailing. Although Edinger could continue her research, having secured several unpaid research assistant positions following her graduation, by 1933 her position as curator of fossil vertebrates at the Senckenburg Museum of Natural History in Frankfurt had become increasingly difficult under the restrictive racial laws of the Nazi regime. By 1938, after Kristallnacht, she was unable to return to work and forced to flee.
Following a short spell in London, Edinger landed on American shores in 1940 and took up her first salaried position, at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Within months of her arrival she went on to attend the founding meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, at which she was the only woman present [3]. Later she would go on to be the first female president of the society (1963).
During the next years at Harvard, Edinger continued to publish highly detailed, thorough anatomical works. Among the most famous of those was a monograph, ‘Evolution of the Horse Brain’ [4], spurred by a meeting with George Gaylord Simpson. Edinger described a series of horse brains, showing differences in size and external anatomy, using a framework of stratigraphic sequence to reconstruct the pattern of evolutionary change in geological time. She concluded that many features of the brain must have arisen independently and in parallel in different mammalian lineages. Her work illustrated the value of the fossil record in understanding brain evolution, identifying features and trends that would not have been possible by consultation of extant material alone. The importance of paleoneurology was clear, and Edinger was to rewrite her 1929 book in English [5], a task that took many years and many museum trips around the US and Europe, where she was able to re-connect with colleagues, spread her ideas on the fossil brain and challenge earlier theoretical frameworks of brain evolution. Until her death in 1967, Edinger dedicated her time to producing the volume, and its contents remain the essential first step for any researcher embarking on work in the field of paleoneurology today.
Though she had started to lose her hearing as a teenager, and reported that she was entirely deaf without hearing aids, Tilly made her amazing contribution with her brain for rocks (and rocky brains)!
References
[1] Edinger T. 1921. über Nothosaurus. Ein Steinkern der Schädelhöhle. Senckenbergiana 3: 121-129
[2] Edinger T. 1929. Die fossilen Gehirne. Ergebnisse der Anatomie under Entwicklungsgeschichte 28: 1-249
[3] Buchholtz E., Seyfarth E.-A. 1999. The gospel of the fossil brain: Tilly Edinger and the science of paleoneurology. Brain Research Bulletin 48(4): 351-361
[4] Edinger T. 1948. Evolution of the horse brain. Geological Society of America Memoir 25: 1-177
[5] Edinger T. 1975. Paleoneurology 1804-1966. An annotated bibliography. Advances in Anatomy, Embryology, and Cell Biology 49: 1-258
Post submitted by Laura Wilson
Edited by Brenna
Image Permissions granted from the Archives of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University. The portrait is dated 1948. Published in Tilly Edinger: Leben und Werk einer jüdischen Wissenschaftlerin by Rolf Kohring & Gerald Kreft, Stuttgart 2003.
President Roosevelt himself took this photograph of Daisy Suckley in the White House as she went through various papers, February 10, 1942. (Photo: FDR Presidential Library & Museum)
This post was written by Keith Muchowski, an Instruction/Reference Librarian at New York City College of Technology (CUNY) in Brooklyn, New York. He blogs at thestrawfoot.com.
Margaret Suckley was an archivist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York from 1941 to 1963. But she was much more than that.
“Daisy” Suckley, as she was known to friends and family, was born in Rhinebeck, New York in 1891 and grew up on Wilderstein, the family estate on the Hudson River not far from the Roosevelts’ own Springwood in Hyde Park. This was a small, rarefied world and in the ensuing decades Daisy saw sixth cousin Franklin’s rise to prominence. She eventually became one of his closest friends and confidants, sharing the good times and the bad with the country’s only four-term president. Ms. Suckley was there for Franklin in the 1920s when he was struck paralyzed from the waist down with polio, knew him during his years in Albany when he was New York governor and he became a national figure, attended the presidential inaugural in 1933 in the depths of the Great Depression, offered a discreet and comforting ear during the dark days of the Second World War when, as commander-in-chief, he made difficult and lonely decisions affecting the lives of millions around the world. Finally, Daisy was one of the inner circle present in Warm Springs, Georgia when the president died in April 1945. Roosevelt was inscrutable to most—some called him The Sphinx—but if anyone outside his immediate family knew him, it was Margaret “Daisy” Suckley.
Ms. Suckley (left) in Roosevelt’s private office at the presidential library with actress Evelyn Keyes, and Library Director Fred Shipman. Ms. Keyes is holding the album-version of Ms. Suckley’s book The True Story of Fala, October 31, 1946. (Photo: FDR Presidential Library & Museum)
There were perks to being Roosevelt’s close friend. The two enjoyed picnics and country drives. Both loved to dish the gossip about Washington politicos and the Hudson River Valley families they had known for decades. Daisy helped President Roosevelt design his Hyde Park retreat, Top Cottage. She enjoyed the “Children’s Hour” afternoon breaks when Roosevelt would mix cocktails for himself and his friends to unwind. There were getaways at Shangri-La, the rustic presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains known today as Camp David. She attended services at Hyde Park Church with the First Family, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth when the royals visited in 1939. It was she who gave him Fala, the Scottish Terrier to whom he was so attached after receiving the pooch as a Christmas gift in 1941.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stood at a podium on the grounds of his family home in Hyde Park and dedicated the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library on June 30, 1941. He was still in office at the time, having won re-election to an unprecedented third (and eventually fourth) term seven months previously. Roosevelt clearly believed that libraries and archives were themselves exercises in democracy in these years when fascism was spreading around the world. Ever the optimist even as World War Two raged in Europe and the Pacific, Roosevelt declared “It seems to me that the dedication of a library is in itself an act of faith. To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future.” Then he quipped to the two thousand gathered about this being their one chance to see the place for free.
Roosevelt had been an unrepentant collector since his earliest boyhood days, with wide-ranging interests especially in naval history, models ships, taxidermy, philately, books on local history, political ephemera, and—probably above all—anything related to the Roosevelt clan itself. His eight-years-and-counting administration had already produced reams of material via the myriad alphabet soup New Deal agencies that had put millions of Americans to work during the Great Depression. It was becoming increasingly obvious in that Summer of 1941 that the United States would likely become entangled in the Second World War; as Roosevelt well understood, that would mean even more documents for the historical record.
Presidential repositories of various incarnations were not entirely new. George Washington had taken his papers with him back to Mount Vernon after his administration for organization. Rutherford B. Hayes, Herbert Hoover, and even Warren G. Harding had versions of them. Nora E. Cordingley (featured in a March 2018 Women of Library History post) was a librarian at Roosevelt House, essentially a de facto presidential library opened in 1923 at Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace on Manhattan’s East 20th Street whose papers and other materials eventually moved to Harvard University’s Houghton and Widener Libraries. What was new about Franklin Roosevelt’s creation was its codification of what is today’s presidential library system. Roosevelt convened a committee of professional historians for advice and consultation, raised the private funds necessary to build the library and museum, urged Congress to pass the enabling legislation, involved leading archive and library authorities, and ultimately deeded the site to the American people via the National Archives, which itself he had signed into being in 1934.
The academic advisors, archivists, and library professionals at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library were all important, indeed crucial, to the professionalization and growth of both the Roosevelt site and what would become the National Archives and Records Administration’s Office of Presidential Libraries. However, Roosevelt understood in those early that he also needed someone within his museum and library who knew him deeply and understood the nuances of his life and long career. That is why he turned to Ms. Suckley, securing her a position as junior archivist in September 1941 just months after the opening. The library was very much a working place for the president, who kept an office there, where—unbeknownst to museum-goers on the other side of the wall—he might be going through papers with Daisy, entertaining dignitaries while she looked on, or even making decisions of consequence to the war. Ms. Suckley worked conscientiously, even lovingly, in the presidential library, going through boxes of photographs and identifying individuals, providing dates and place names that only she would know, filling in gaps in the historical record, sorting papers, and serving in ways only an intimate could. The work only expanded after President Roosevelt died and associates like Felix Frankfurter and others donated all or some of their own papers. The work also became more institutionalized and codified. Other Roosevelt aides took on increasingly important roles after the president’s death in 1945. More series of papers became available to scholars in the 1950s and 60s as the Roosevelt Era receded from current events into history. Through it all Daisy Suckley continued on for nearly two more decades until her retirement in 1963.
Margaret “Daisy” Suckley lived for twenty-eight more years after her retirement, turning her attention to the preservation of her ancestral home there on the Hudson but never forgetting Franklin. In those later years when reporters, historians, and the just plain curious curious showed up at Wilderstein and inevitably asked if there was any more to tell about her friendship with Franklin Roosevelt she always gave a wry smile and demure “No, of course there isn’t.” After her death at the age of ninety-nine in June 1991 however a trove of letters and diaries was found in an old suitcase hidden under her bed there at Wilderstein. A leading Roosevelt scholar edited and published a significant portion of the journals and correspondence in 1995 to great public interest. While it is still unclear if there was every any romantic involvement between Franklin and Daisy—as some have speculated for decades—the letters do provide a deeper, more nuanced portrayal of their relationship and show just how close the two were. Franklin Delano Roosevelt may have been The Sphinx to many, hiding his feelings behind a veneer of affability and bonhomie. To his old neighbor, distant cousin, discreet friend, loyal aid, and steadfast curator Margaret Suckley, he showed the truer, more vulnerable side of himself.
Ms. Suckley later in life at Wilderstein, 1988. (Photo: FDR Presidential Library & Museum)
Further reading:
Hufbauer, Benjamin. “The Roosevelt Presidential Library: A Shift in Commemoration.” American Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, Fall 2001, pp. 173–193.
Koch, Cynthia M. and Lynn A. Bassanese. “Roosevelt and His Library, Parts 1 & 2.” Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration, vol. 33, no. 2, Summer 2001, Web.
McCoy, Donald R. “The Beginnings of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library,” Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives, vol. 7, no. 3, Fall 1975, pp. 137-150.
Persico, Joseph E. Franklin & Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherford, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life. Random House, 2008.
Ward, Geoffrey C. Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley. Houghton Mifflin, 1995.
